


Promise Me Always

by simply_aly



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 02:36:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simply_aly/pseuds/simply_aly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena has to decide whether she wants to be a vampire or not. Elijah is her sounding board.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise Me Always

**Author's Note:**

> Written for wheatear on livejournal for the prompt: always and forever.

Elijah finds her in her room, sitting on her bed. There’s a photo album in front of her and she’s slowly looking through it. Her fingers ghost over the pictures; not touching but hovering, grasping, fists clenching, as if she’s trying to pull the people out of the pictures.  
  
“I came as soon as I heard,” he whispers, announcing himself.  
  
She freezes for a moment at the sound of another voice, and when she finally turns to face him, he averts his eyes guiltily. (His sister did this; his family hurt her family once more in a long string of offences that date back to when he was human.)  
  
He hears movement on the bed and when he finally meets her gaze, he notices she’s shifted to make room for him. (He wonders briefly why she is the only one to not make him work for forgiveness.)  
  
“I never wanted this,” she tells him. “I know it’s strange when half the people I care for are vampires, but I...I liked being human. I wanted the life my parents wanted for me.” He looks down at the photo album and then at her face and notes the sadness in her eyes. At first he attributed it to mourning the loss of her humanity but now—he begins to fear it is something else entirely.  
  
“You don’t want to transition, do you, Elena?” he asks gently.  
  
Elena shakes her head but says, “But I have to.” She draws a shaky breath and gestures to the pictures on the page. “I’m all he has left. I can’t let myself die and leave my brother all alone. He’d never do that to me so I can’t do it to him either. And my friends—they’ve all been through so much already. Then there’s Stefan and Damon. I care about them both and it would destroy them.”  
  
“Yet you’re still hesitating. Why?” (He wonders what it’s like to have the choice. To be able to decide, knowing what is to come and what you will never have. He never had that choice—so many never had that choice—and he envies her this.)  
  
Elena closes her eyes and sighs before turning to face him directly. “Every move I’ve made recently has been about everyone else and this feels no different. A part of me wonders, though, if I should think of it that way. Forever is a long time, as I think you already know, and I don’t want to make a choice now that will stay with me forever if _I_ do not choose it myself.  
  
Not for the first time, Elijah finds himself amazed by her insight. “I think this is a decision that you have to make for yourself. Vampires who transition feeling any sort of resentment never really lose that, and forever is a long time to be bitter.”  
  
“What about you?” she asks with a tilt of her head. “Do _you_ want me to turn?”  
  
(He does. He will never admit it to her, but he doesn’t want to lose another person that he loves.) “I want you to do what is best for you,” he answers diplomatically.  
  
She smiles softly—sadly—then, and he wonders if she knows, if something in his face gave it away. “If I turn, will you be there, too?”  
  
“Always,” he answers without hesitation, “for whatever you need.”  
  
Her smile is genuine now as she closes the book and sets it aside. “Always for an Original vampire is a very long time,” she teases.  
  
“Forever,” he replies. And he means it.  
  
(And he thinks that she knows it.)


End file.
